


The Archaeologist and Her Prize

by mellow_spacebird



Category: The Mummy (2017)
Genre: F/F, Lesbians, So yeah, as you may be able to tell, enjoy, i high key sympathise with the mummy, non-canon compliant, super gay, though obviously murder is wrong in most circumstances
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:08:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22315354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mellow_spacebird/pseuds/mellow_spacebird
Summary: Instead of choosing Nick, Ahmanet chooses Jenny. In this particular fic, Jenny is a morally grey character. I wanted to write this, so here it is. I hope you enjoy it. It's like 3 in the morning and I'm hella tired. We'll see how this goes together!Happy reading :)
Relationships: Jennifer Halsey/Princess Ahmanet
Comments: 4
Kudos: 91





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Mostly Jenny's POV, but still 3rd person narrative. Pretty much gay drabble from someone who is hella gay for Ahmanet (in non-mummy form, just in case yall's minds went to someplace weird. That said, we don't kink-shame here, so you do you :) )  
> .  
> If you're a fan of any of my other fics, rest assured I WILL update them as soon as possible. School is just very busy at the moment; when my schedule settles down, I'll get around to it. I haven't forgotten about you. I love yall :)  
> .  
> As always, happy reading, lovely people!

“You must’ve been someone special, huh?” Jenny cooed, lightly caressing the hieroglyph-laden sarcophagus. She knew the mercury-filled pit out of which they had retrieved the coffin did not suggest a person of exceptional moral high-ground; that said, she didn’t particularly care. Jenny didn’t care if the person was ‘great,’ all she really cared about was that they were interesting, and you can’t get more interesting than an ancient Egyptian buried in a magnificent secret cavern and submerged in a pool of mercury.

They had loaded the sarcophagus onto the jet an hour ago. While the rest of the soldiers settled in for the long trip to England, Jenny chose to sit next to the incredibly ornate cargo. She wanted to be the first to examine it, to translate the inscriptions, perhaps even to open it, though that would have to wait until they got to the lab. Nick, airhead that he was, couldn’t stop talking about the ‘incredible riches’ that must be inside to a disinterested Vail, who seemed a bit woozy from his spider bite. Medical said Chris would be fine, but he was starting to look a bit pale.

Focusing back on the sarcophagus, Jenny passed her hand over a column of hieroglyphs on the right side.

“Princess… Ahmanet,” she deciphered carefully, then gasped. “Oh! I’ve been looking for you for so long. There was the legend of the princess erased from history, but nobody thought it was true because wouldn’t we have found her by now? But here you are. I’ve finally found you.”

Jenny marveled at her discovery. She did not notice Vail approaching from behind her. She only startled when he began slicing one of the thick straps securing the sarcophagus’ lid.

“Vail! What are you doing?! We’re in a moving plane! You could damage her—I mean, the artifact!”

No reply. Vail cuts through the second strap.

“Vail! Stop it! You are endangering an important scientific discovery!” Jenny persisted, scrambling to her feet from where she crouched.

Vail spares her a glance. One of his eyes swirls a sickening milky-white. He returns to the third strap.

“VAIL!” Jenny tries again. “SOMEBODY STOP HIM!”

The last thing she remembers is Nick and several soldiers rushing towards Vail and attempting to restrain him with little success.

Suddenly, Jenny found herself standing on the crest of a colossal sand dune. Light wind shuffles her hair. Sand shifts around her feet. The air is hot and the sun is bright. The dress she wears is not her own.

A woman stands next to her. The woman is breathtaking. Vibrant blue makeup lines her eyes underscored by a thick charcoal liner. She watches the horizon, though she seems aware that Jenny is staring.

“Ahmanet,” says Jenny—a statement, not a question.

“Yes, Setepai,” the woman replies, turning to Jenny with a slight, warm smile.

Before Jenny could offer a smile of her own, the archaeologist found herself on her back, gasping for air. She no longer stood among the dunes. Jenny found herself claustrophobic, a clear plastic pressing in on all sides. She had to get out. She had to get fresh air. She struggled until her trappings gave way.

Jenny sat up. Cold air assaulted her abdomen, bestowing upon her an acute awareness that she was completely unclothed. Where were her clothes? Where was _she_ , for that matter? The room she found herself in was neat and sterile. Several other tables, identical to the one on which Jenny sat, were aligned in rows, equidistant from one another. Each supported a large plastic sack like the one Jenny had just escaped. To her horror, Jenny realized she was in a morgue.

“Why am I alive?” she muttered to herself. “What happened? What is going _on_ here?!”

A tall, lanky man entered through the set of double doors. Likely a mortician. He nearly fell backward when he saw Jenny sitting upon a slab, alive as ever.

“What am I doing here?” Jenny asked.

“W-w-what do you m-mean what are you doing here? You are—w-were—dead.”

“Dead,” she repeated numbly.

“There, uh, there was a plane crash and no survivors. You were on that plane. You shouldn’t be alive,” he continued, clearly still in shock. However, he was still alert enough to grab a nearby lab coat and offer it to the still-nude Jenny. She accepted it gratefully.

“I need to go,” she stated, more to herself than to the perplexed medical specialist.

“Um, yes,” the man agreed dumbly.

He stepped out of her way as she crossed the room. She entered the hall. After a few wrong terms, she made it onto a side street, presumably the alley to which the city delivered the bodies.

“Hey, Jenny! What’s up?” Chris waved jovially from the sidewalk.

“Vail?! What the hell are you doing here?!”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, you don’t remember any of it, do you?” he sassed. As he came closer, it became apparent to Jenny that his skin exuded an unearthly green pallor—not glowing, but close.

“Good thing Ahmanet sent me to come collect you,” he continued.

“Ahmanet? She’s here?”

“Yes, she’s here. She sent me. Did some of your brain cells not survive the crash?”

“B-but _how?_ Her sarcophagus could never have survived the fall. It would have broken into a million pieces. There’s no way it survived!”

“I said _Ahmanet_ , not her sarcophagus,” Vail pointed out, cocking his hip impatiently. “Look, we gotta get going because she’s expecting you and I gotta say, for someone who’s spent that long in a coffin, she’s not very patient.”

Jenny just followed him mutely. She didn’t understand what was going on. She didn’t understand how she had gone from the plane to the desert to the morgue in less than five minutes. That said, everyone probably thought she was dead, so following Chris was probably her best option—that and she wasn’t really in the right mindset to make her own decisions.

When the pair reached the city limits, Jenny found her voice.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked.

“To Ahmanet,” Chris replied.

“How much farther?”

“God, you must’ve been a drag on road trips,” he mused.

“For fuck’s sake, Vail! I’m tired, confused, apparently _undead_ , and I could clearly not give any less fucks about going on some wild-goose-chase for a woman who has been dead for thousands of years and whose mummy probably got destroyed in that awful plane crash!!!” By the time Jenny finished speaking, tears were streaming down her cheeks and her voice was cracking. Before, she had felt detached; it was only a matter of time, she knew, before all of her emotional walls came crashing down. If Jenny was being honest, she’s surprised it didn’t happen sooner.

“Hey! Hey!” Chris de-escalated, raising his hands in defense. “I didn’t mean to upset you. Just, we’ll get there when we get there, okay? Finding an ancient sort-of-a-mummy-but-not-really-anymore doesn’t come with a handbook. I’m still figuring this shit out, too.”

That made Jenny feel a bit better. It wasn’t as bad when someone else was just as fucked as you. _Misery loves company,_ she thought.

It turns out, ‘we’ll get there when we get there,’ meant another two hours. Two hours walking through suburbs, then fields—even a bit of forest—until they reached a slowly-disintegrating stone church. The walls were overgrown with weeds and the building’s tall, thin windows were mostly shattered. Chris stopped in front of the arched doorway where the front doors used to be. He gestured into the open darkness ahead of them.

“In there?” Jenny asked.

“In there,” he affirmed. “Just go in there and I’ll see you at some point later.”

“You’re not coming?”

“To be honest, she kind of gives me the creeps. I don’t know what she has planned, so I’d rather skedaddle than find out. Don’t worry, though. You already died once today. Really—if you think about it—your day can only go up from here.”

“Thanks,” Jenny replied. Her remark fell just-short of sass. It betrayed some of the fear and apprehension she felt roiling in the pit of her stomach. Hands clenched at her sides, she melted into the darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jenny enters the church... What will she find within?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, Lovely People! It has been a while since I posted the first chapter. 2020 is crazy, ammiright? However, I've wanted to continue this for some time now and I have been spurred on by all of your lovely comments and kudos! Tysm!!!
> 
> As always, all mistakes are my own, I hope you enjoy reading this, and I would love, love, love to read any comments/feedback/plot point ideas you would like to share!!!
> 
> Happy reading! :)

The inside of the church is dank, in the way most old churches are; moisture congregates on the stones and gives the nave a particularly earthy smell. It reminded Jenny of her university days, when she surveyed the castles and ruins of the English countryside for one of her history requirements. The scent was strangely comforting.

Jenny ambled further over the uneven, cobbled floor. She had no particular idea of where she was going. Vail had essentially left her to create her own adventure, so she assumed there was also no particular rush to any potential destination. She strolled through the aisles, admiring what stonework she could see in the near-darkness. She could make out beautiful stained glass panels filtered through with moonlight and, when her eyes adjusted sufficiently, the pews, wooden and sturdy, though clearly weathered. It must have been nice when it was filled with life, Jenny thought.

As Jenny approached the altar, she caught sight of a figure--no, several shadowy figures crouched within the apse. The most substantial of the shadows rose and cleared their throat, preparing to speak.

"Setepai," the female voice intoned, raspy but intelligible nonetheless.

"Ahmanet?" Jenny was perplexed. She had been on the plane, then in the desert, then in the morgue, and now here was the mummy/princess/woman from the desert (hallucination?) talking to her in an abandoned church in rural England. Was Jenny on drugs? Did she fall ill in the desert and make this all up? Was she dead and this was the afterlife's convoluted way of messing with her? Jenny didn't know: Too many questions and not enough answers.

"Yes, My Chosen, it is I, Princess Ahmanet, rightful heir to all of Egypt and its territories," the figure replied.

At this, the remaining figures stood at attention, which Jenny interpreted as a sign of respect.

Jenny's chin wagged, though no words came out. Her eyebrows knit together and her head tilted, as if its top half had suddenly become too heavy. When she regained control of her faculties, Jenny spoke:

"Pardon, come again? You're... Ahmanet? And you're here? But I saw your sarcophagus--and the plane crash--w-what kind of experimental drugs did Nick talk me into doing this time?"

The figure exhaled abruptly in a way which suggested amusement. It could not rightly be called a laugh, for it sounded hoarse, like air escaping from the lungs of someone who's gotten the wind knocked out of them.

"Let us move past these formalities. I have acquired the dagger of Set-" She raised above the altar a menacingly curved blade, which glinted in a shaft of moonlight. "and once you have committed yourself to him, all will be clear."

"...committed myself to him?" queried Jenny languorously, still half-convinced this was an elaborate dream state.

Ahmanet gave no answer but stepped into the moonlight, illuminating herself and rousing the others to action. While Jenny took in the woman's ragged ceremonial wrappings, sallow skin, and startling double pupils, two of the other figures moved to lift Jenny and place her, lying down, onto the altar. Ahmanet climbed atop her, straddling her waist, and raised the dagger of Set above her head.

Suddenly, it was as if Jenny's mind was roused to alertness, spurred on by the dagger pointed directly below her sternum, on track to sink into her heart. She may have been dead, temporarily, but she felt pretty alive now and intended to keep it that way. Jenny rolled and struggled against her emaciated captors. She bared her teeth and growled with the effort of wrenching her limbs from surprisingly strong emaciated hands.

"Let me go! Why are you doing this?! Let me GO!" she shouted, but to no avail.

Ahmanet launched the dagger directly at Jenny's heart.

Just as quickly, she stopped, only a hair's breadth shy of piercing Jenny's chest.

"WHERE IS IT?!" the mummy roared. "WHERE IS THE STONE?!!!"


End file.
